Most cabinets from lowes and HD are particle board unless you pay for an upgrade... look for a shop that does Euro style cabinets these offer 20% more storage in same foot print. take a look at are website. www.petradesigninc.com

Hello all...

Just starting planning for a kitchen remodel including new appliances, cabinets, floor, the whole sha-bang.

Question is...we had a design made up at both Home Depot and Lowes...both designers came up with the exact same floor plan...so we're decently confident about our ideas and plan. The quote from Lowes (which was much more detailed) was about $4500 for all the cabinets. As far as I know, the quality of the cabinets seemed OK (dovetail drawers, etc) the only thing I wasn't sure about is whether or not they use plywood for sides and back of the box. Obviously the cabinet fronts are solid wood. Anyone know?

We are using a rather cheap door/drawer design with a recessed panel and a partial/standard overlay...which we like. We did go with most of the upgrade features also such as a pullout wastebasket, self closing drawers, and pullout shelves for the base cabinets....so the price seems reasonable to me. I have a pretty small kitchen too, in a little bungalow style house.

I will be having someone else do the install (most likely). We want to shop around more too. Anyone know of any places around Metro-Detroit that we could take our designed floorplan to and see what they can do (price wise)? Any suggestions for places to check out would be helpful.

Also, since I believe all the cabinets we selected are standard sizes, would it be advisable to go with RTA cabinets instead of assembled ones? I'm pretty handy, but I'm not sure about what it takes to install the necessary components for the self closing drawers and other optional features we chose? Anyone know? Obviously these would likely be cheaper, but I don't know if they offer those same features as the big box stores do, or if the price difference would be worth it? Also, where would I go to buy these? Would they have stores around that I could find them in rather than going online?? What about RTA quality? I'm confident I could screw it all together with cams and pre-drilled holes...would everything line up right and look professional when finished??? Sometimes these things that come RTA like TV stands and the like end up having saggy drawers and things not lining up right and what-not, at least in my limited experience...so I'm a little leery to go this route...

Anyone that can offer up any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, etc for a first-timer doing a project like this would be great!!![/QUOTE]

particle board is not the product of choice in the deep south its too humid it starts to bubble in just few years... plywood is more stable in Florida.. look for a shop that does Euro Style cabinets and get 20% more storage.
look at these euro style cabinets www.petradesigninc.com